Birth of an Idiocracy

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Saturday August 30, 2008 · 12:28 PM PDT

2008/08/30 · 12:28

Crossposted at Marginalia: Politics from the Outside In, at thewhole9.com.

How is John McCain's selection of Alaska Governer Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate imprudent, impolitic, and irresponsible? Lord, let us count the ways. And, just to clear the record, let us do so while defusing theRight's only plausible argument about Palin--that she is just as if not more qualified than Barack Obama to be commander in chief. Bullet points will be used to make powerpoint presentations to your conservative friends easy as, although perhaps not American as, apple pie.

eliot1

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Friday May 16, 2008 · 12:05 PM PDT

2008/05/16 · 12:05

From Dependent Arisings:

Where are we today in the realm of presidential politics? After a long, overdrawn nomination process, we finally have not one, but two, "Black Swan" candidates. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the eponymous book, a Black Swan is "large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations." In other words, we didn't--and couldn't--have possibly conceived that McCain, the erstwhile frontrunner-cum-longshot-cum-heir apparent would simultaneously benefit from Mike Huckabee's precipitous rise and fall (due as much to anathema from the social conservative establishment as National Review types), Fred Thompson's splitting Huckabee's social conservative vote in South Carolina, and Mitt Romney's grating unctuousness raising the ire of everyone in the party other than National Review types. And lest I forget to mention, in toto, Rudy Guiliani's campaign strategy?

eliot1

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Sunday January 06, 2008 · 7:57 PM PST

2008/01/06 · 19:57

Crossposted from Dependent Arisings:

Watching the Democratic debate last night, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for John Edwards. In another election cycle, he could easily be the strongest candidate on the stage. Not only that, but if Obama hadn’t entered the race, he would’ve most certainly emerged as Hillary’s main competitor for the nod. Not to downplay Obama’s considerable rhetorical and organizational skills, but enough anti-Clinton sentiment appears to exist in the primary electorate that someone would’ve claimed that mantle regardless.

eliot1

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Thursday September 20, 2007 · 5:54 PM PDT

2007/09/20 · 17:54

Crossposted at Dependent Arisings:

The Petraeus testimony, aside from giving President Bush the political cover he so desperately desired in regards to progress in Iraq and the “surge,” was a singular opportunity for Republicans in Congress to declare their independence from the Administration’s myopic and desultory policies. Everyone knows the obvious: Bush has just a little over a year left in office, and the Republican party (or what’s left of it) will no longer under the Administration’s guidance. It’s normal for Congress to assert itself vis-a-vis an outgoing President, especially when members of the President’s party need to distance themselves from unpopular policy.

eliot1

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Thursday August 30, 2007 · 3:34 PM PDT

2007/08/30 · 15:34

Hayyim Feldman, Tikkun Community Organizer, guestblogging:

Dear Senator Feingold,

I was very glad to learn about your proposal to censure President Bush and other members of his Administration. The purpose of this open letter is to make a case for a modification that I ask you to please consider.

eliot1

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Friday August 17, 2007 · 2:42 PM PDT

2007/08/17 · 14:42

Crossposted from Dependent Arisings:

Among the most pernicious of bipartisan agreements in contemporary America, few are as widespread in their effect as the massive agricultural subsidies given to farmers–rather, agribusiness. The word "farmers" is itself a rhetorical tool used to legitimate the funding of corporate agribusinesses that actually destroy small farms. Thus, as in some many other cases, rhetoric is antithetical to application (see "Healthy Forests," "Clean Skies," etc.).

eliot1

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Thursday August 02, 2007 · 1:31 PM PDT

2007/08/02 · 13:31

From Dependent Arisings:

The unfolding tragedy of the Minneapolis bridge collapse is a systemic one, not "merely" limited to the climbing body count. It is the result of government obfuscation and negligence as tortuous as the Mississippi river. Grover Norquest wanted to drown government in the bathtub. But the enfant terrible here is not government, but the ideologues who have so meticulously worked towards dismantling our trust in government’s ability to, well, govern.

eliot1

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Wednesday July 25, 2007 · 1:50 PM PDT

2007/07/25 · 13:50

Crossposted from Dependent Arisings:

Six years of sustained hyper-alarmist rhetoric from the Bush Administration has created a malaise in the American public. Simply put, we no longer believe what we’re told by our government. While a healthy does of skepticism from the public isn’t necessarily a bad thing (could’ve used more of it in the run up to the current war in Iraq), our thankful dismissal of the neoconservatives’ Manichean worldview, I fear, may be accompanied by a desire to live in a willful ignorance to potential security threats that should be acknowledged, although not under the specious rubric of the war on terror.

eliot1

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Thursday June 21, 2007 · 1:38 PM PDT

2007/06/21 · 13:38

From the Objector:

Now, while I'm loathe to agree with Christopher Hitchens on much of anything these days, I'm hesitant to say that civilizational barriers seem to be very much in play regarding this uncomfortable news emanating from Pakistan today:

eliot1

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Tuesday June 19, 2007 · 1:29 PM PDT

2007/06/19 · 13:29

From the Objector:

What do we do now, in a post-Fatah Gaza Strip? In a brazenly realpolitik maneuver, the NY Times is now reporting that Israel and the United States are attempting to bolster Mahmoud Abbas and, Fatah, the same organization vilified under Yasser Arafat. This a day after that the European Union announced that, as Hamas was no longer represented in the Palestinian government, aid would resume being given to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

eliot1

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Wednesday April 18, 2007 · 2:10 PM PDT

2007/04/18 · 14:10

From theobjector.net

Here's an excerpt from a speech Bush gave yesterday:

It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.

What is Bush talking about? The VA student shootings. In no way do I mean to diminish the horror of that event--we're all shocked, and that shock and anger transcends politics. But we should not let these events suspend the fact that horrors like these occur in Iraq everyday. Bush's statement applies perfectly to the daily horror that is Iraq. Not only that, but everyday these events occur, we are culpable, insofar as in democracy, a government purportedly represents the will of the people (and although we're far from a true democracy, we're still culpable in our relative laxity on the issue).

eliot1

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Tuesday March 27, 2007 · 2:03 PM PDT

2007/03/27 · 14:03

From theobjector.net:

Gary Kamiya analyzes the newest Pew poll, and if I were a Republican, I'd be afraid. Or maybe I'd just start another war on false pretenses and drape everything in jingoistic hyper-patriotic language and curtail civil liberties and politicize the Justice Department hoping to extend a hegemony that was founded on divisive rhetoric and a pseudo-fascist State of Perpetual Alarm against an invisible enemy. Maybe.

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Birth of an Idiocracy

Endgame

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Dig In Yer Heels

An Open Letter to Sen. Feingold: From Censure to Redemption

Down with the Farm Bill

Infrastructure '08

What’s the Matter With Pakistan?

Pakistan's Accolades for Bin Laden

A State of One's Own

Bush's Unintended Doublespeak: Sad Lessons from Home and Abroad

Bush Suicide Bombs His Own Party